The vice mayor has repeated himself several times in recent weeks.
“We aren’t doing this because we necessarily want to,” said Andy Weissman in bidding to update City Hall’s campaign finance laws, “but because we need to be in compliance with state law.”
As an attorney for 39 years, Mr. Weissman believes state law should be obeyed, not as obvious of a principle as you may think.
He was puzzled by the resistance of his colleagues.
“I was going to say ‘You can’t be only partially Constitutional,’” Mr. Weissman said. “It’s like being pregnant. You are pregnant or you are not pregnant. You can’t be just a little pregnant.
“We were contrary to state law, and you have to do something about it.”
There was a 50-50 split on the Council going into Tuesday night’s meeting where the state law-centric new ordinance unanimously passed.
Wonks and their special interests aside, the point for the public is that there will be a $1,000 cap on cash and in-kind donations in the next City Council campaign, already under way.
Activist Laura Stuart asserted that the campaign finance reform ordinance deserved a more intense inspection than it had received since it was a change of monumental significance. “The Council spent more time getting input from the community on hiring an animal control officer than it has on campaign finance reform,” Ms. Stuart complained. “This is the most important change that we will make.”
Mr. Weissman aggressively disagreed.
“The community’s vote on term limits, the community’s vote on Charter reform in 2006 that changed the form of government from CAO to a city manager, were two instances of votes of significance that made minor revisions to a 29-year-old campaign finance ordinance seem insignificant,” he said. “The decision back in the 1960s to create the Redevelopment Agency was perhaps the most significant economic vote the city ever has taken.
“It is easy to get hyperbolic about this stuff,” Mr. Weissman said. “But we are governed by overarching set of state rules. We have an opportunity, within limits, to create local rules to provide limits with regard to the amount of money that can go to a campaign. That is all we are really doing. We were not exactly reinventing the wheel.”
